Disc drives are typical data storage systems and are commonly used in work stations, personal computers, portable computers and other computing systems to store large amounts of data in a form that can be readily available to a user. A disc drive includes a head disc assembly that is attached to a printed circuit board assembly. The head disc assembly includes a variety of components. The components include one or more discs having data surfaces that are coated with a magnetizable medium for storage of digital information in a plurality of circular, concentric data tracks. The disc(s) are mounted on a spindle motor that causes the disc(s) to spin and the data surfaces of the disc(s) to pass under respective aerodynamic bearing disc head sliders. The sliders carry magnetic transducers, which write information to and read information from the data surfaces of the discs.
With the rapid increase in a real density of the magnetizable medium, continued demand exists for disc drives having smaller sizes. A disc drive can be as small as a one-inch drive or smaller. A one-inch drive can be formed in accordance with CompactFlash® (CF) Type II specifications adopted by the CompactFlash Association (CFA) as an industry standard. There is also an increasing demand for one-inch drives that do not meet CF specifications and have a smaller size than the size specified by the CF specifications (i.e. sizes that are at least 20% smaller than CF specifications in terms of drive overall volume).
By forming a one-inch drive in accordance with CF Type II specifications, one-inch disc drives can be removably installed in various handheld or portable devices that demand large storage capacities and include CF Type II receiving slots, such as computing machines (e.g. personal data assistants), communication devices (e.g. cell phones), audio devices (e.g. digital music players), video recorders (e.g. digital cameras) and other small consumer applications. In these various example consumer products that include CF Type II receiving slots, it is desirable to use a one-inch drive compared to a CompactFlash® card because the one-inch drive has a larger data storage capacity. To form a one-inch disc drive that is compatible with CF Type II slots, the one-inch drive needs to include a CF compatible interface. Compatible CF interfaces include mounting features for insertion into a CF Type II receiving slot as well as a compatible electrical connector.
One way to meet the increasing demands for CF type one-inch disc drives and non-CF type one-inch disc drives is to design different sized head disc assemblies. Such an endeavor, however, would be resource and time consuming as well as tedious. It is desirable to design a single sized head disc assembly that can be adapted to meet the demands for both CF type one-inch disc drives and non-CF type one-inch disc drives.
Adapting a single sized head disc assembly to be a CF compatible one-inch disc drive presents many challenges. In general, adapting a single sized head disc assembly requires many additional installation processes and part components, such as mounting screws. A CF mounting slot would have to be installed onto a head disc assembly before the installation of a printed circuit board assembly and electrical connector. Besides the increase in costs associated with the increase in labor, time and component parts for adapting a head disc assembly to be a CF compatible one-inch disc drive, there is also a potential for alignment problems between different part components of the CF compatible one-inch drive.
Embodiments of the present invention provide solutions to these and other problems, and offer other advantages over the prior art.